Labor Woos Whites for Obama

By

Brody Mullins and

Kris Maher

Updated Oct. 7, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Republicans have dominated presidential elections for a generation by targeting white working-class voters with a conservative message on social issues. Organized labor has a secret weapon it hopes will win them back for Sen. Barack Obama: a fast-growing outfit called Working America.

The little-noticed group formed by the AFL-CIO has no role in workplaces or contract bargaining and collects no mandatory dues. What it does is sign up members, 2.5 million so far, and persuade them to vote Democratic.

Working-class whites are important because they make up just about half of the electorate. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows Sen. Obama has built a six-point lead over Sen. John McCain in part by cutting his deficit among these voters to 11 points.

Labor's Election-Year Push

Labor has a secret weapon this election season in Working America, a group they hope will persuade white, working-class voters to vote Democratic.

Two weeks ago, when Sen. Obama trailed Sen. McCain by 18 points among this group, the presidential race was essentially tied, according to the WSJ/NBC poll.

Some of Sen. Obama's gains in the polls come as voters hold Republicans responsible for the economy. And in the past month, as turmoil has roiled Wall Street, Working America has sought to reinforce the Democratic message that Sen. Obama is better prepared to help the economy than Sen. McCain.

Working America's 450 paid employees are mostly going after white, working-class voters in swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania. With leaflets, phone calls and personal visits, they urge those voters to focus on economic issues like taxes, health care and education -- where Sen. Obama polls well -- and less on issues like religion and guns, on which many of them are closer to Sen. McCain.

ENLARGE

"We're like the angel on the other shoulder, saying, 'Remember, you've got to get your other kid through college,'" says Mike Podhorzer, deputy political director for the AFL-CIO.

Among white working-class voters, Sen. Obama, the first African-American presidential nominee from a major party, is now polling about the same or better than Democratic nominees did before the previous two elections. Those voters "need to connect to their need for economic change so that it's stronger than their fear of cultural change," says Karen Nussbaum, Working America's executive director. "I think it's a challenge for a lot of white people to vote for a black candidate. They've never been asked to do it before."

A Lot at Stake

Organized labor has much at stake in this election, as its leaders are hoping a Democratic president and Congress would push through legislation that could help reverse unions' long membership slide. Roughly 70% of Working America members have voted Democratic since the group was formed in 2003, the same percentage as union members, according to the AFL-CIO. The group says it has been signing up an average 50,000 new members a week for its database as the election approaches, up from 20,000 weekly during 2007. In its biggest state, the pivotal electoral battleground of Ohio, Working America's 800,000 members could make up more than 10% of the vote on Election Day.

Republicans and business groups will be working hard to counter the labor message. "Groups like Working America are in bed with people who want to raise taxes and sink the economy further, rather than let the entrepreneurial spirit grow," said Barbara Comstock, a Republican strategist. "We'll be engaged in a fact-based debate on this."

Working America is just one of the aggressive new methods labor is employing to push Democratic policies, which include increases in job protection and workplace safety. A top union priority is the Employee Free Choice Act: It makes organizing easier because workers merely have to sign union authorization cards, rather than hold formal elections in which companies can mount an opposition campaign.

Businesses have arrayed themselves against that legislation, which so far has been blocked by Senate Republicans. Three groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are spending a combined $60 million on ads opposing it in battleground states where Democrats could win new Senate seats that could help them thwart Republican filibusters. In the past few months, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. held meetings with store managers and department supervisors across the country to warn them that the legislation could lead to union organizing at its stores.

ENLARGE

Organized labor's effort for Democrats this year is its biggest ever -- and as in 2004, it is roughly equal to spending on Republicans by big business. Political action committees through July 2008 have contributed $130.5 million on behalf of union members to Democratic candidates for Congress and the White House and organizations that support them. Corporations' political action committees have spent $126.5 million on behalf of the Republican candidates and the groups that back them, according to figures provided to The Wall Street Journal by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. (With Democrats in the majority in Congress, corporate PACs this election also have given nearly as much to elect Democrats.)

More Money

Organized labor plans to spend an additional $200 million for advertising and to mobilize voters, more than it spent for those activities in the 2004 election. Last month, the Service Employees International Union announced it would run an ad costing $2.1 million in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and three other states. The ad depicts a white family struggling from a job loss and says an Obama tax cut would benefit the middle class. Much of the union money is being used to fund new technology and door-to-door campaigns, both to convince more members to vote Democratic on Election Day and to get beyond the shrinking pool of union workers.

The Laborers' International Union of North America has political volunteers call an 800 number from their cellphones to get connected to fellow union members via computer-automated dialing. At the end of a call, the volunteers punch in a code to have voter-registration materials or campaign literature automatically mailed. Since the end of May, the union has made 63,000 member-to-member calls that led to registering more than 13,000 members to vote.

At the United Steelworkers, a computerized system automatically dials hundreds of numbers, but only connects the volunteer if a person answers. In previous elections, volunteers dialed by hand from printed membership lists. Callers now reach twice as many people per hour, and the union has made more than two million calls touting Democratic candidates since January. "It's going to give us an opportunity to organize at a level we've never been able to organize at before," said Eric Russell, who heads the union's main phone bank.

In Pittsburgh, a team of SEIU members and staff use a computerized voter-access network to identify unregistered voters who don't belong to a union. In recent weeks, the group targeted 18- to 24-year-olds and African-Americans, who are most likely to support Sen. Obama.

In Mahoning County, a key to victory in the battleground of Ohio, the Kluchars are hoping the candidates get beyond political rhetoric to speak to them at tonight's debate. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders are trying to attack the race issue head-on, with mixed success.

Working America, mostly funded by the AFL-CIO, was formed in large part to address labor's declining share of the U.S. work force, down by about a third in the past 20 years. It has offices in 25 states, mostly those with the highest union membership, and heavily emphasizes battleground states for the presidential race.

There are no dues, although those who join are asked to donate $5. About 20% do, the group says. Members need only sign up with door-to-door recruiters.

Michael McMahon, a 34-year-old Working America canvasser in Cleveland, considered himself a conservative in his early 20s, but several events pushed him across the political spectrum. He lost one job at a furniture maker when the company shipped work to China, and he struggled to get health-care benefits at another job to help care for a son with autism.

"I'm tired of feeling helpless," Mr. McMahon said. "I tell people, 'Vote your economic interests.' Most people are really receptive when I knock on the door and say, 'We're trying to get politicians to know that we're fed up with the broken health-care system.'"

In the past month, turmoil on Wall Street has focused voters' attention on the economy, an area where Sen. Obama has the advantage. The new WSJ/NBC poll shows Sen. Obama beating Sen. McCain 54% to 39% among voters who are focused on the economy.

To win the presidential race, Sen. Obama doesn't need a majority of white working-class voters, but he should stay within 15 points and can't "get clobbered," said Ruy Teixeira, a political analyst with the Brookings Institution.

Autumn polls in the past two elections gave President George W. Bush 10- and 15-point margins among those voters. The last Democrat to win a presidential election, Bill Clinton, essentially tied for those voters in 1996, according to exit polls.

Sen. McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential nominee was aimed at ramping up the ticket's share of the working-class vote, partly by attracting members with socially conservative views on issues such as abortion and gun control. Gov. Palin, a hunter, was briefly a union member, and the campaign has trumpeted the fact that her husband is a member of the United Steelworkers. Since Gov. Palin joined Sen. McCain on the Republican ticket, the two have campaigned frequently in Pennsylvania and Ohio, both hotly contested states with high numbers of working-class voters.

The new WSJ/NBC poll shows that 51% of white working-class voters view Gov. Palin positively, compared with just 44% of all registered voters. The poll had a margin of error of 5.9% for white working-class voters and 3.9% for all registered voters.

Working America primarily targets suburban communities with high percentages of union households, seeking white, working-class voters who recently have sided with Republicans on social issues. Using union membership data as a guide, teams of young canvassers skip the union households and recruit among their neighbors. Many Working America members are related to or know a union member; nearly 40% had a parent who belonged in a union, according to the AFL-CIO.

Many also live next door to union members who have pensions or better health-care coverage, says Richard Freeman, an economics professor at Harvard University who has studied the group. With the struggling economy, he says, "There's been a potential for somebody to say, 'We're going to be your representative, not at the workplace, but in the public arena.'"

Demographic Reach

Mr. Freeman compares the group to the AARP, which requires a nominal membership fee and promises to fight for retiree issues. Working America now is trying to expand its demographic reach, recently targeting communities with concentrations of Latino voters as well as union members.

While there is no guarantee that membership equates a vote for Democrats, organizers point to some successes. In last year's gubernatorial race in Kentucky, 77% of the union households voted Democratic, compared with 79% Working America members, according to a poll by Peter D. Hart Research Associates commissioned by Working America. The Democratic candidate won.

In 2004, a poll in Ohio of 1,000 Working America members who signed up before the election showed that 50% said they planned to vote for Democratic Sen. John Kerry. For months, the group directed mailings, phone calls and home visits by canvassers at the new members. After the election, a research firm re-interviewed more than 300 members of the group who had been polled and found that 64% ended up voting for the Democrat. Those voting for President Bush also dropped slightly in the study, to 29% from 33%.

There were only 800,000 Working America members nationally at the time, but today there are that many in Ohio alone. At the end of August, the group's canvassers there started going back to members' households to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act, health care and trade issues, contrasting their positions -- and Sen. Obama's -- with Sen. McCain's.

Rallying the Troops

One recent day, canvasser Rebecka Hawkins reported to the organization's Columbus office, where canvassing director Scott Sneddon rallied his troops and set their goals: Each canvasser was to visit 80 houses, talk to 45 people and sign up 28 to 35 new members.

Canvassers, who are paid $10.42 an hour and receive full health-care coverage, are given addresses of targeted households. Wearing white Nikes and jeans and carrying a satchel over her shoulder, Ms. Hawkins, a 22-year-old American-studies major who graduated last year from Ursuline College in Pepper Pike, Ohio, walked with her clipboard up to the first door. She had no set script, although the group has fact sheets. "I wing it a lot," she said, walking up a driveway. "The major thing is jobs and health care because that's affecting everything."

After an hour, Ms. Hawkins had signed up a half-dozen new members. She also handed out voter-registration forms to people who aren't signed up. "You gotta register to vote, dude," Ms. Hawkins pleaded with one person, handing over a clipboard and pen. "It's the only way politicians will listen."

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